The Wright's Stuff
by Nutzkie
Summary: A well-deserved break turns into "so the drama" when an unexpected mission falls in Team Possible's lap.  But what tricks does their adversary have up his sleeve?  And what's a big hole in the ground got to do with it?  The answer is surprisingly deep.
1. Life's a Beach

**Foreword:**

Before I get started with this little tale, I'd like to explain a few things regarding my reasons for creating it.

First of all, for all of you who are patiently waiting and wondering, after a long hiatus I have officially restarted work on "Summertime Blues." Expect the next chapter to be posted sometime right after New Year's.

Secondly, as an avid history buff, I've often endeavored to include locations of historic significance in the stories I write. The inclusion of real-world places, I've always felt, lends a certain sense of connection between the reader and the narrative. And by describing locations that most readers are already familiar with, the impact of this connection becomes all the more potent.

But an idea recently took root in my head, planted by one of my many hobbies and nurtured by an innate sense of curiosity

You see, in my spare time, I have occasionally been known to engage in an activity that I tentatively refer to as "companion photography." In a nutshell, "companion photography" is a photographic study of change through time. The process starts within the pages of dusty books, searching for antique photographs and any other information relating to the subjects they depict. Form there you head out into the field, book and camera in tow, searching for the locations where these grainy black-and-white images were first captured on film. It can be a long process to be sure, sometimes taking multiple trips and hours of searching, but eventually, through a combination of meticulous research, careful observation and a certain amount of good old-fashioned luck, It's usually possible to place yourself in the exact position that the original photographer occupied, sometimes more than a century before.

And then you pull out your modern, digital, eleventy bazillion megapixel camera, and you go…

_Click._

If you've done it right, what you're left with is two images of the exact same subject, separated only by time. And if you do it enough times you'll begin to see that in many cases, even after the passage of more than a century, there are certain features that remain recognizable. A peculiar bend in the road… A building with a distinctive roof… A mountain peek silhouetted in the distance… Landmarks to frame the image and provide points of reference.

But such visual retrospectives are not limited to locations with landmark status. History is all around us, along every road and on every street corner. For while it may look somewhat different today, we walk upon the same earth that the pioneers tread so many decades before us.

And this brings me to my salient point. For this story represents something of a literary experiment, you might say. My primary purpose here is to see just how far one can go with using historic fact in a fictional story… to test the boundaries of the concept, if you will. In this tale I will attempt to take a set of obscure locations, all of them 100% real, and weave them into a narrative, using as much real-world detail, both descriptive and historic, as I possibly can.

And hope against hope that the whole thing doesn't ultimately collapse beneath the weight of all that reality.

Let's see how well it works…

* * *

**~ Chapter One ~**

_Under the Boardwalk..._

_Out of the sun..._

_Under the Boardwalk..._

_We'll be having some fun..._

_Under the Boardwalk..._

_People walking above..._

_Under the Boardwalk..._

_We'll be falling in love..._

Lyrics from a song on the outer edge of recollection filtered through his mind: Faint echoes of a long forgotten Oldies show from some radio station buried deep within the AM dial. He couldn't remember the group that sang it or the era that spawned it, or much of anything else beyond fragmented lyrics and the simplest of tunes. But he remembered the larger theme, and it seemed to fit the current circumstances just perfectly.

Stretching himself out on the expansive blanket beneath him, the young blonde savored the sensation of warm coastal sunshine flowing across his entire body. Equally warm sand beneath him gave way to his motions, and the strangely comforting feeling brought a smile to his face. Meanwhile, the rhythmic crashing of the waves mingled with the shouts of children and the squawking of gulls, lending a soundtrack to a truly idyllic scene. For someone hailing from a land-locked and mountainous state better known for its skiing than for any sort of waterfront real estate, this was truly a treat.

...And of course the drop-dead gorgeous redhead lounging beside him didn't hurt matters either.

Lifting the sunglasses from his face and chancing a glance about the beach, Ron Stoppable had to admit that this had been a ferociously booyah-worthy idea. With long days of summer becoming shorter and the promise of fall right around the corner, the world's two favorite teen heroes had decided that one final summer fling was in order: A last chance to enjoy the simple pleasures of short sleeves and ice cream cones before waning daylight and cooler temperatures would bring falling leaves and entice wool sweaters out from their summer-long banishment in the cedar closet.

And so they had packed up the Sloth and headed west to California, eventually making their way to the seaside resort town of Santa Cruz with its famous sweeping beaches and Boardwalk amusement park. For two days so far they had been able to forget all the cares and worries that so often accompany those in the world-saving business. They had walked up and down the wooden planking of the iconic beachfront wonderment, experiencing every ride and trying their luck at every carnival game on the midway. They had explored some of the quaint shops that dotted the inland streets, shared intimate, candlelit dinners beneath the orange glow of a Pacific sunset, and of course, marinated on the beach as if there wasn't a care in the world to trouble them. As magic weekends go, things don't often get much more magical.

"So how are things over on your side of the world, babe?" Kim mumbled half into their shared blanket. Laying face down and with her head turned away, communication with her newly minted fiancé was difficult, but she wasn't about to make any sudden movements... Not with the back of her brand new two-piece undone and the base of a nice even tan already forming. _"Let's see what little Miss Rockwaller thinks of THIS shade when we get home."_ she had quietly thought.

"Living it and loving it, KP." Ron responded enthusiastically. "You know, if I had realized that solar power was this enjoyable, I would've gone green years ago."

"And how's Rufus coping?" Kim prodded, thinking back to how easily the small creature could burn.

"Well let's ask him." Ron responded, shifting onto his side. "Hey Rufus! How you holdin' up, bud-eeeeeee-_yowsers!"_

Lifting his shades once again, Ron gawked openly at the elaborate sand castle that had seemingly sprang from nowhere in the sand beside him. Five levels high with peaked spires and a great onion-shaped dome at its center, it appeared to draw much of its architectural inspiration from the Taj Mahal, although as descriptions go, "awe-inspiring" would likely be more than adequate.

"Wow! I see the little guy's been busy." Kim observed, rising up to her elbows to see, but still taking care to cover her modesty.

"Always the little pink showoff." Ron groused. "Although I'm glad to see he's been reading that subscription to Architectural Digest that I got him last Christmas. Hey Rufus! Knock-knock, little man!"

It was a few moments before the structures diminutive occupant appeared on an upper-floor balcony, a plain white towel wrapped about his waist, a tiny cloud of steam trailing behind him.

"Hurk, wassup?" he squeaked.

"What? Oh don't tell me you've got a _sauna_ in that thing?" Ron whined. "I've always wanted a sauna!"

"Since _when?"_ Kim asked.

"Since just now when I saw that Rufus had one." Ron replied, matter-of-factly.

"Yeeeeeaaaaaaah..." Kim moaned with an obligatory eye-roll.

"So anyway, I see we're investing in beachfront property now, are we?" Ron inquired, turning back toward his pet.

"Nnnnn-huh. _Flip it!"_ the tiny creature squeaked, thrusting an upward thumb for effect.

"Oh well. I guess it's official then." Ron sighed, lying back down on the blanket. "They'll give one of those sub-prime mortgages to pretty much anybody."

"And they wonder why people want to regulate Wall Street." Kim lazily added, returning to her original prone position as well. "Wake me when the _rest_ of the economy crashes and burns, will you?"

"Will do."

Kim lifted her head and shot a glance in Ron's direction that threatened to turn the sunshine into snow flurries.

"I mean the concept! Not the person! Sorry!" Ron quickly added, flinching slightly as he did.

Kim's scowl quickly shifted to a smile as warm as the sunshine however, and both teens were soon deeply absorbed in utter nothingness once again, so content with their surroundings and their company that nothing in the world could disturb them.

_*Beep-beep-de-beep*_

Except for that.

"I thought you buried that infernal thing in the sand." Ron mumbled through gritted teeth.

"I did," Kim growled back as she reached for the Kimmunicator, "but Wade dug it out with the robotic claw attachment. I swear, next time I'm force-feeding it to a sea lion. Go Wade!" she said, all in one continuous breath, effortlessly switching from annoyed to professional at precisely the right syllable.

"Hey guys! How's the vacation going?" Wade's jovial face inquired.

"Ohhhhh... so far, so good." Kim replied, expertly matching his positive tone with her own.

"Which I'm guessing is about to change drastically." Ron not-so-cheerfully added, leaning into camera range from the side.

"Sorry guys," the young tech guru blanched, "but you know I wouldn't be bugging you if it wasn't important."

"Yeah, we get that." Kim sighed, her eyes downcast and sullen. She really _was_ enjoying herself so far this trip. "So what's the sitch?"

"Drakken's on the move and headed your way." Wade replied without missing a beat. "Satellites showed his hover car heading due west over the Sierra Nevada Mountains about two hours ago. Shego's with him."

"You said that satellites _'showed'_ him heading west?" Kim clarified. "I take it that means we don't still have eyes on the target?"

"Unfortunately, no." Wade admitted. "I was able to track him across the central valley region, but when he got to the area of Pacheco Pass he dropped his altitude and I lost radar tracking amongst all the ground clutter."

"So we've got a madman operating somewhere along the Central California coast, but we don't know where. Super!" Ron grumbled. "And you interrupted my tan for this news, _why,_ precisely?"

"Let him finish." Kim said with a scolding look before turning her attention back to the small device in her hands. "Continue, Wade."

"Well I was _going_ to say," he continued, shooting a quick glare at Ron, "that there's another piece of intel I've dug up. Apparently, Drakken forgot to delete the messages on his answering machine before he vacated his previous lair. So I hacked the files..."

"Naturally."

"...and among all the miscellaneous domestic hullabaloo, there was one message where he told Shego that the new lair was rights."

"Rights?" Kim asked quizzically. "Don't you mean the lair is 'right'?"

"No, I mean 'rights.'" Wade confirmed. "It's clear as a bell on the tape. He specifically said 'rights' with an 's.'"

"Sooooo, maybe he misspoke.?" Ron offered from the sidelines.

"Maybe." Wade agreed. "But check this out. I did a search of some online databases, cross-checking for any local references that word."

"And you found a connection?"

"Yes and no. There were no references to 'rights,' or at least none that made any sense. But during the search I stumbled across a map that lists a local town called 'Wright's,' with a 'W.'"

"So you think that's where the gruesome twosome is headed?"

"It seems to fit."

"Got a location for us?"

"Don't I always?" Wade grinned. "I've already uploaded the relevant data to the Sloth's nav system. Just follow the yellow line and it will take you straight there."

"We're on it, Wade. And thanks for the heads-up on this. Really, we mean it." Kim smiled warmly at the young genius, who simply smiled himself before closing the connection and plunging the tiny screen into darkness.

"You heard the Wade, Ron." she said, re-affixing her top and rising to gather their things. "Playtime at the beach is over."

"Aw, man!" Ron whined. "And I haven't even got sand in my shorts yet. That's like the one Stoppable beach tradition."

"Knowing you, I think you'll manage." Kim drolly remarked, hefting the bulging tote bag onto her shoulder. "There's five hundred feet of open beach between us and the car, and the world is full of possibilities."

* * *

"Are you _sure _this is the place, Wade?" a very confused teen heroine asked.

For the entire trip, the Sloth's integrated navigation system had appeared to function flawlessly. The heads-up display had directed them north along a rural highway into the mountains that separated Santa Cruz from the greater San Francisco Bay Area. They had made good time up to the summit, then exited onto a series of rural roads that steadily became narrower and steeper, descending ever deeper into the folds of the great Coast Range, until the path before them resembled a strand of dried spaghetti stuck to a wall. Finally, after negotiating more hairpins than you'd find at a convention of geriatric beauticians, they arrived at the spot designated by the computer with a large, red "X"…

And found themselves surrounded by nothing but forest.

"Positive." Wade emphatically replied. "According to the coordinates and your GPS readouts, you're there."

"Yeah Wade, but where's 'there?'" Ron interjected from the passenger seat.

"Huh?" Wade blinked in confusion.

"Here. There's no _'there'_ here."

"There's no there _where?"_

"Here! As in _there!"_ Ron insisted, waving his hands around in a sweeping motion to indicate their surroundings. "There's no _'there'_ there!"

"Well according to my systems, all indications are that you're there."

"Yeah, but _where?"_

"Can we knock it off with the free-verse poetry already?" Kim broke in. "It's like listening to a couple of stoned beatniks at some overpriced coffee house."

"Well if that's what the cats are a-diggin' then that's what the cats are a-gettin'." Ron comically sang, adopting a low and smooth voice and snapping his fingers for effect.

The look on Kim's face told him that she was not amused.

"Sorry." He quickly apologized, shrinking back in his seat.

"Anywhooooo," Kim continued, looking back to the LCD screen in the center of the Sloth's dash, "Where does this leave us."

"You mean besides in the middle of nowhere?"

"So not the time, Ron. And same question, Wade."

"I don't know, Kim." Wade replied in utter confusion: A look that was highly unusual for him. "All of the data is saying that you're right on target."

"Except for the fact that we're not." Kim observed, opening her door and stepping out of the car. She had parked on a wide gravel turnout set within a sharp bend in the road. A few yards away, said road crossed a small creek via a concrete bridge with ornate, yet badly corroded handrails, then doubled back in an apparent attempt to climb out of the canyon which its surveyors had spent so much effort plumbing.

"I'm just not seeing anything." Kim lamented.

"And I'm going to go not see anything over there." Ron stated, indicating a clump of thick bushes a few yards away.

"What? Why?" Kim confusedly asked.

"Two hours ago I drank a extra-large slurpster and rode a roller coaster. Do the math."

"Ah! Well good luck then!" Kim quickly relented, exaggeratedly waving for him to go take care of his business and not press the conversation any further.

"Thanks. Back in a momentito." He replied, quickly retreating into the undergrowth.

Searching through the thick brush for a suitable place to do that which must be done, he soon found a promising spot and proceeded to answer nature's call. But it wasn't until he was finishing up that he noticed something odd about this particular spot: Something that didn't set right with the rest of his surroundings.

"Uh, KP! You might want to come over and check this out!" He called out.

"Seriously Ron! This is _so_ not the time or the place for your stupid 'Adam and Eve' fantasy!"

"What? Jeez, no! It's not… just… NO!" he shouted back defensively.

"Oh, sorry." Kim briefly blushed before turning perplexed once again. "Wait, you didn't have another 'zipper' incident, did you?"

"And it's not _that_ either! Although thanks for dredging up the memory again."

"Ooooh, double sorry." She apologized, cringing slightly at the memory herself. "But exactly _what_ is your big beef then?"

"Just come over here already!"

Warily, Kim did as Ron asked and picked her way through the brush toward the sound of his voice. It took a few minutes, but before long she was standing by his side offering him a confused and slightly annoyed expression.

"So what's the big thing I needed to see?" she demanded.

"I think I found our town." He said cryptically. "Check it out."

Looking to the ground where Ron was pointing, Kim quickly realized just what it was that had so grabbed his attention. There, broken by tree roots and blanketed by a thick carpet of damp and mottled leaves, the remains of a concrete foundation could clearly be seen. The building that once sat atop it had obviously been gone for many years, but by the footprint it left one could tell it had been large: Far to large to be a simple residence. This was something that screamed "commercial enterprise" on a scale that was reminiscent of a large convenience store or a Club Banana retail outlet.

"Wade?" Kim warily asked, bringing the Kimmunicator up to her face. "Exactly _how old_ is that map of yours?"

"Let's see now." Wade answered, squinting at the screen in front of him. "There's some small print in the margins... kinda hard to read... but if I zoom in and clean things up a bit... copyright says it was published… in… _nineteen oh five."_

"Oy!" Ron groaned, slapping a hand over his face while Kim shot a deadpan look into the device on her wrist.

"Sorry 'bout that guys." Wade admitted sheepishly, shrinking back in his chair. "I didn't realize it was a ghost town. Guess I should've checked the fine print a little closer."

"It's okay, Wade." Kim sighed. "Having a community vanish over time isn't really something you normally think about. We'll call it 'lesson learned' and move on."

"Understood." Wade quickly agreed. "But that still leaves us with the question of where Drakken has gone to ground."

"Then let's go back to what we know." Kim said as Ron moved in beside her. "We know that Drakken was last seen headed in this direction. He made a verbal slip on his voice mail that may have been nothing more than that, but also seems to correlate with where we are now."

"Except where you are is a _ghost_ town." Wade pointed out. "Now that I know what to look for, I just dug up some old news clippings. Turns out that the community there disappeared sometime back during World War Two. According to the census data I looking at right now, there's no permanent residents within a mile of you... in _any_ direction."

"Hmmmm." Ron pondered, stroking his chin thoughtfully. "Now granted, logical reasoning has never been one of my strong suits, but isn't that the sort of thing that would make a place _perfect_ for setting up a lair?"

For several seconds, both Wade and Kim stared blankly at Ron, then turned to share a meaningful glance between each other.

"You know, he's got a point there." Wade shrugged.

"I know… I know." Kim agreed, the wheels in her mind turning furiously. "Tell me, what did this town used to do? You know, before it up and vanished."

"You mean like 'what was their primary industry?'" Wade asked as his fingers renewed their intricate dance across the keyboard. "Why? Where are you going with this?"

"I'm thinking subterranean operations." Kim explained. "Some sort of mining or quarrying business. Anything with a lot of tunnels that a bad guy could hide in. We _are_ in California after all."

"Good thinking, Kim." Wade admitted. "But you're sort of in the wrong area for that. The Gold Rush of 1849 took place mainly in the eastern part of the state, up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The Coast Ranges have an entirely different geology to them. Not much in the way of usable minerals."

"Okay then. So what _did_ they do here?"

"Mostly logging, in that neck of the woods." Wade informed, squinting at his screen. "Back before the coastal redwood became a protected species, there was a pretty sizable timber harvest in that region."

"Anything else?"

"Well, it looks like Wright's itself was somewhat unique in one respect. Apparently there were a lot of small orchards in the area back at the turn of the century. The station at Wright's was a shipping hub where the crops would be brought down from the hills, loaded into boxcars and sent north to ferry landings along the southern end of the bay. From there it was just a short trip by boat to the big produce markets in San Francisco."

"Time out!" Kim suddenly broke in. "'Station?' 'Boxcars?'"

"Oh, right! I forgot to mention." The young webmaster backtracked. "Wright's actually grew up around a railroad station. Part of something called the South Pacific Coast Railroad. It looks like the tracks came up from San Jose following the creek on your right, turned past a point just across the road from you, and headed west toward the coast. There were several more towns along the way of course, but the tracks ultimately went to all the way to Santa Cruz."

"Okay dude... I'm officially confused." Ron admitted, scratching his head as he mentally sketched out what Wade had just described. "I see the creek you're talking about, and the road is kinda hard to miss, but beyond that there's nothing but trees and one really big, really _steep_ mountain. We'd have a tough time getting up and over that hill with _repelling_ gear. There's no way anyone could drag an entire freight train over that ridge."

He turned his perplexed expression toward his red-haired companion: An action that only left him more confused when he saw the knowing grin that she was shooting at him.

"Which means there's gotta be a tunnel somewhere back in there." She stated, her agile mind already thinking like a civil engineer.

"You called it, Kim." Wade confirmed, pulling up another page on his monitor. "The old Summit Tunnel is about eight hundred feet west of you, according to an old plot map I just found. Just head across the road and follow the small stream up the ravine on your left until it dead-ends against the mountain. It should be easy to spot."

"Understood, Wade. We'll call you back once we're in position." She informed the young genius before closing the connection and moving back toward the Sloth.

"Grab the gear, Ron." She instructed. "We're going _spelunking."

* * *

_

The short hike upstream was like an expedition to another world.

Climbing through a decaying fence of rusted barbed wire, they left the road behind them and entered the realm of the surreal. Towering redwoods, so ancient that they already boasted six centuries of growth rings when Columbus first struck his sails for the new world flanked their path to either side, their evergreen boughs turning an otherwise bright day into a world of creeping shadows and muted green hues. Somewhat lower, stands of live oak and madrone trees spread their limbs wide to link arms, creating a nearly solid canopy overhead. Six-inch tendrils of Spanish moss dangled from every branch, while blankets of wild ivy spread unrestricted across the ground and up the hillsides, climbing rocks and trees and pretty much every stationary object in sight. A long-toed salamander scurried for cover as they probed ever deeper into the primordial forest, diligently following the tell tale sound of running water.

It wasn't long before their search was rewarded, as they emerged from the tree line to find a small brook running across their path, gurgling merrily as it made its way down to the larger creek at the bottom of the canyon. Decades of erosion had cut the stream bed deep into the earth, leaving a steep-sided trench that varied between five and eight feet deep in spots. Along the far bank, a collapsed stone wall indicated a failed attempt by humans to contain the flow's destructive force, while just a few feet away a wooden timber jutted beyond the edge, a portion of its length cantilevering out over six feet of thin air while the remainder lay entombed within the bank.

Pausing to inspect the scene before them and plot their next move, Kim was surprised when Ron stepped forward and knelt at the stream's edge, closely inspecting the wooden beam whose flat sides and squared edges told the clear story of an object shaped by human hands. It seemed strange behavior, even by Ron's standards, and her curiosity only grew when he glanced to his right, then his left, and began stretching his arms to draw imaginary sight lines through the forest, as if looking down a street that existed only in his mind.

It was an odd dance to be sure, but not one without purpose: For while most would never suspect it, Ron Stoppable was something of a closet train buff. Perhaps it was the mechanical eccentricities of a steam locomotive that appealed to his inventive nature, or maybe it was just his way of finding yet another means by which to never be normal, but there was something about the equation of steel wheels and iron track that appealed to him. He found the subject fascinating, and when this interest was coupled with a natural penchant for looking at the world somewhat differently than most, the most amazing observations became possible.

"Railroad tie." He finally declared, pointing at the rotted and moss-covered beam. "The tracks came right through here. The creek's eroded the bank on this side, so the original rail bed is about half-gone now, but it came in through that cut down there." He pointed to a shallow trench about twenty feet away, nearly invisible amongst the undergrowth. "They would have swung through here, roughly following the line of the stream, and gone right up through that clump of trees there." He pointed to their left, indicating a small grove of fir trees that upon closer inspection appeared slightly younger than the majority of their neighbors.

"If we go that way and stay on this line, we should wind up right on top of it." He finally concluded.

All in all, it was probably the most well thought out and coherent plan that he had concocted in some time, and Kim was quick to agree.

Pushing deeper into the woods, their path began to take on a serpentine shape as they weaved back and forth between trees and over the shifting remnants of small landslides. The ground was so uneven and overgrown that it was difficult to believe something as substantial as a railroad could have ever negotiated passage. But whenever the idea seemed like so much crazy talk, Ron would find a rust-encrusted piece of rail protruding from the ground, and the fact would be driven home once again.

"Man, this place gives me the creeps." Ron admitted, clumsily mounting a small rock pile and nearly sliding down the far side. "It's like something out of 'Jurassic Park' back in here."

"Well when you stop and think about it, this is what it's _supposed_ to be like, Ron." Kim pointed out, pausing to take in the overall surroundings. "This is what the entire west coast once looked like. For thousands of years… before human beings ever arrived on scene... _this_ is what nature had built."

"Well I'm just saying that if a velociraptor comes charging out of the brush, I am _so_ out of here!"

"You and me both." Kim agreed. "Now let's keep moving. If Drakken's actually holed up in here, he's not going to foil himself."

Slowly and carefully, they pushed onward, using caution as they scurried over piles of loose rocks and vaulted over fallen trees. The forest itself seemed to close in around them, the mossy tendrils reaching toward them like tentacles of some unknown monster. Meanwhile, the sound of the creek gradually became louder, slowly approaching the level of a dull roar. Then, as they looped around yet another tree and stepped through a clump of brush, both teens confronted a sight that stopped them dead in their tracks.

There, rising out of the hillside before them, was a concrete monolith nearly twenty feet tall with its ends angled outward to buttress against the hillside beyond. To the left, the gaping maw of the tunnel portal lay in ruins, a large portion of its parapet-like lip and about ten feet of its roof having long ago collapsed; undermined by the activities of the small creek which now cascaded down in a pair of waterfalls flanking each side of the shadow-filled chasm. Creeping vines flowed freely over the shattered edge and dangled playfully, forming a leafy green veil across the cavernous bore. To the right, a defunct spillway put forth not a torrent of water, but a flowing carpet of moss, indicating yet another ultimately futile attempt at containing nature's hydrological fury.

And within the bore of the tunnel itself, murky shadows offered faint glimpses of graffiti-covered walls: Evidence that they were not the first modern explorers to discover this incredible place.

"So what do you think?" Ron asked uneasily. "Early-industrial wreckage or portal to another dimension?"

"Hmmmmm… I'm gonna go with option 'A' right now," Kim admitted, stepping forward and leaping across the frothing water with cat-like agility, "but i reserve the right to revise my position later."

"That's what I was afraid of." Ron responded, jumping across the torrent himself, but with far more screaming and arm flailing than his fiancé.

One they both were safely across the small torrent, they began a careful examination of their surroundings with Kim studying the left-hand side and Ron inspecting the right. Slowly and methodically they started from the collapsed entrance and worked their way back into the dank interior, searching for any sign of a concealed entrance.

Although defaced by the work of multiple vandals, the walls of the tunnel still maintained a certain old-school charm in the way than most historic structures do. The line of the walls started narrow at their base, briefly widening out before arcing back inward and meeting overhead in a gracefully vaulted arch. Looking back toward the outside world, the overall profile was reminiscent of a horseshoe, Ron quietly noted to himself.

He also noted that the elevations involved were highly deceiving, as a cursory glance back down the bore revealed that the path they had taken to get there was in fact two to three feet higher than where he currently stood. Decades of landslides had buried the original grade of the railroad beneath multiple tons of earth and rock, and the overgrowth had served to blend the spoils seamlessly with the surrounding environment. Nature was clearly fighting to reclaim that which human beings had wrested from it, and for all the evidence he could see, he concluded that nature was winning that fight.

"Got anything yet?" Kim called out from the shadows, her voice echoing off the cement walls and startling him somewhat.

"Not yet," he admitted, quickly regaining his composure, "although they sure could make this easier. With all these lines, it's kind of hard to see anything that might be a door."

"That's how they used to cast concrete." Kim shrugged, not diverting her eyes from her own section of wall. "They hadn't learned how to pour the stuff all at once without developing air bubbles and all sorts of other bad things, so they built everything up slowly, one layer at a time."

"Kind of like Leggos for grown-ups then?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

"Huh. Interesting, I guess. Although it sorta puts your mind to a layer cake too."

"Actually, I'm pretty sure it just puts _your_ mind to a layer cake."

"Occupational risk of being a 'foodie.'" He shrugged, dragging his gaze up the wall to the ceiling above where dark streaks danced across the pitted surface. From a distance they looked like shadows, but his observant nature was quick to pick up on a truth far more interesting.

"Whoa! Check it out!" he exclaimed, pointing to the roof above them.

"Huh. And just what is _that?"_ Kim pondered, craning her neck upward. "Tar? Were they sealing the roof for leaks?"

"Soot." Ron pointed out, showing all the confidence of a forensic scientist who had just nailed a serial killer dead to rights. "That's the calling card of a steam engine." He tilted his head and stared deeply at the surface above, seemingly transfixed by the presence of such a simple and ordinary substance.

"Seventy years on and their mark is still here." He sighed in amazement.

"Yeah, let's hear it for longevity." Kim panned. "Now can we focus ourselves a little bit lower in elevation? I don't know about you, but I haven't seen too many doors in ceilings."

"Yeah, but have you ever really _looked_ for one there?"

"Jeez, Ron. That's… that's…" She paused for a moment as she considered the statement.

"That's actually a fair point."

They continued their search in silence, inching their way farther and farther into the mountain, pulling out their flashlights when the world simply became too dark to see. Further in, a great mound of earth completely blocked the path ahead.

"Remind me again… Exactly _when_ and _why_ did they seal this thing?" Ron inquired.

"Wade said it was dynamited back during World War Two." Kim related. "Something about local folks being worried that saboteurs would use it as a hideout."

"Sort of like what Drakken's doing right now then?"

"Once again, pretty much."

"Oh well, then _that_ plan worked out really well, didn't it?"

"Easy to be a Monday morning quarterback, Ron."

The search continued in silence once again, inch by inch, crevice by crevice. They were starting to run out of room, knowing that if they reached the end of the bore without success, they would be forced to retrace their steps back to the entrance and start over.

Then, just as Kim was becoming truly frustrated and Ron was beginning to give up hope, Rufus spotted something. Being a member of a predominantly subterranean species, evolution had gifted him with certain advantages when it came to working underground. The rodent had at his disposal a highly specialized tool kit, and he now put it to good use, leaping out of his owner's pocket and scampering over to a nearby section of wall. His keen eyes had spotted something amiss amongst the shadows.

His suspicions were confirmed when his whiskers detected a faint draft of air emanating from the unusually deep set of cracks within the wall, and his animated chittering echoed loudly through the subterranean concrete tube which they now occupied. It wasn't long before both of his favorite humans were at his side.

"Jackpot!" Kim enthused, placing her hand over the crack that the mole rat had indicated. "We've got pronounced air flow. There's an open space behind here somewhere."

"That's gotta be it." Ron agreed. "Good job, little buddy."

Rufus simply shrugged and waved off the praise. In his mind, he was simply contributing to the mission, just as all team members should.

"So what now?" Ron asked after several seconds. Asking the obvious question was always part of his forte.

"Now we figure out how to open this concrete canister." Kim said, activating the Kimmunicator on her wrist.

"Wade, we found the entrance." She spoke into the small device. "Can you run a scan and tell us what sort of locking mechanism we're dealing with?"

"Could Shego use a splash of color in her wardrobe?" Wade jauntily replied. "Just hold the Kimmunicator at arm's length and we'll know everything about this thing in just a few ticks."

Kim did as she was told, and a yellow beam lanced out against the wall. Slowly sweeping the beam up, then down, it was only a few seconds before the scan was complete and Wade was divining conclusions from the newly-acquired data.

"Well it's not optical, so the de-scrambler comb won't be of much help." He pondered, placing a thoughtful finger against his chin as he scrolled down through pages of information. "There's no keyhole that I can see and there's no peripheral devices linked to the system so it's not biometric either. From what I can tell, I'm guessing it's _voice_ activated."

"So what then? It's like one of those vocal signature things, programmed to respond to specific speech patterns?" Kim prodded.

"I don't think so." Wade replied, shaking his head. "The processor they've installed just doesn't strike me as having enough juice to run that sort of program. I'm guessing it's just a simple password system. No specific voice recognition: Just a set of syllables that it can recognize and respond to."

"So all we have to do is guess the password?"

"That's pretty much it in a nutshell, yeah." Wade nodded.

"Well that's not so bad then." Ron said, eagerly clasping his hands together. "I mean, how many words can there be?"

"In the English language? About half-a-million." Wade answered.

"Ewwww… That many?" Ron responded, his face falling. "So what you're saying then, is that this may take a while?"

"It would have to be something that Drakken would find easy to remember." Kim theorized, looking thoughtfully toward the ground as tapped her chin. "And knowing Drakken, that's bound to be a pretty short list."

"Maybe it's something simple like 'evil?'" Wade offered, causing everyone to glance hopefully at the door, which much to their collective disappointment, did not budge.

"'Villainy?'" Kim offered.

Still nothing.

"'Total global domination?'" Ron volunteered.

"Actually, that's _three_ words, but nice try just the same." Kim encouraged.

"'Doom?'"

"'Diablos?'"

"'Conquer?'"

"'Shego?'"

"'Marigold?'"

All queries met with naught.

"Hey, maybe we're going at this the wrong way?" Ron suddenly piped up, giving all appearances of being a man with a brainstorm. "Maybe Drakken wasn't thinking 'evil' when he programmed this thing?"

"This is _Drakken _ we're dealing with, Ron." Kim chided. "He's _always_ thinking evil."

"Yeah, but maybe in _this _particular case he went another direction with it." Ron continued to press. "Maybe he went with another theme? Something still connected to the sitch, but not necessarily evil on its own?"

"Like… _what?"_ Kim prodded.

"Oh, I don't know…" Ron pondered aloud. "Off the top of my head, maybe something simple like…say… 'All aboard.'"

Suddenly, the earth around them began to shudder and the whole of the tunnel was filled with a mighty groan that put one's mind to the call of some great beast, and left Ron glancing wildly about for approaching dinosaurs. Slowly and haltingly, a large section of tunnel wall retracted inward, then slid to one side, revealing an open space beyond, just large enough for a person to pass through.

"But of course that's only just a theory." Ron grinned proudly, rubbing his knuckles against his shirt.

"Some theory." Wade gawked in utter astonishment.

"And the dumb Stoppable luck strikes again." Kim smiled, sticking her head through the opening and shining her light into the pitch blackness of its depths.

"It goes this way." She indicated, stepping through the gap and forging ahead. "Now stay behind me and stay sharp. We don't know what surprises the good doctor has left for us."

"Okay, you're in charge." Ron agreed, dutifully following into line behind her. "But if we get in there and Drakken's wearing striped bib overalls and an engineer's cap, I'm totally gonna bounce."

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

I guess that seems as good a place to break as any. I sincerely hope that I haven't bored you to frustration so far.

To this point, all of the locations mentioned are real places I have personally visited. From the famous Boardwalk in Santa Cruz to the overgrown remnants of Wright's Station, living a scant two hour's drive away has placed me in the unique position of being able to effectively explore these regions at will.

To be honest, Wright's has held a special place for me since I first learned about it in one of the many books I've read over the years. The story of how such a thriving and vital community could be born from nothing and return to the same, and all within the span of eight decades, strikes a sentimental chord and begs further study. Visiting the ruins and exploring the collapsed tunnel was an almost spiritual experience for me… An experience that I have since repeated twice. I hope I conveyed at least some of that sensation to you through my words today.

And speaking of said words…

_Wright's:_ Just over the line into Santa Clara County from Santa Cruz and about as far from civilization as you can get, the town of Wright's Station is one of the most fascinating California ghost towns this side of Bodie, (at least in my own humble opinion), and sadly one of the least known.

The community here can trace its roots back to the early 1870s when California as a state was barely 20 years old. That summer, a small-time farmer and part-time pastor by the name of James Richards Wright arrived from Ohio with his sizable family in tow. Quick to settle in the town of Burrell near the summit of the Coast Range along the Santa Clara/Santa Cruz County line, Wright planted orchards and vineyards, and built a well-appointed hotel, which he called "Arbor Villa."

It wasn't long before change came to the coastal peaks however, as 1877 saw the construction of a three-foot-gauge railroad known as the South Pacific Coast. Intended to supplant a toll road that had been built just five years prior, the proposed survey called for the tracks to crest the summit via a 6,208-foot tunnel with its northern terminal a mere stone's throw from the good Reverend's hotel and orchards.

Quick to seize upon an opportunity for fast and efficient shipment of his produce, Wright donated a portion of his land to the railroad, providing enough space for a depot, section house, passing track and service facilities. In recognition of the Reverend's self-interested generosity, railroad management voted to name the new community in his honor, and the town of Wright's Station, (or simply "Wright's"), was born.

By the turn of the century, Wright's had become something of a regional transportation hub. In total it boasted two hotels, a general store, a pair of produce packing sheds, a livery stable, post office, schoolhouse, blacksmith, telegraph office, railroad depot, locomotive servicing facilities and a section house for railroad maintenance crews. Meanwhile, across the waters of Los Gatos Creek, Sunset Park was a favorite site for family picnics and civic events, and was served by a 1,500-foot spur track that branched off from the main line and ran upstream to a wooded glade where passengers could be safely let off. Train time during this era was a colorful and chaotic sight with literally dozens of horse-drawn carriages and wagons jamming the crowded Main Street, exchanging passengers and freight with waiting railroad cars while brightly painted and brass trimmed steam locomotives lazily hissed and percolated, patiently awaiting the order to proceed.

And through this choreographed chaos rolled the products from dozens of similar communities along the line: Fresh-cut redwood from the Hihn Mill at Laurel… Sand and gravel from the quarry at Olympia… Tourists bound both to and from the mineral springs at Glenwood… Families heading either to Sunset Park for a picnic or the Big Trees Grove at Felton for an afternoon of communing with nature… Explosives from the powder works at Rincon… Processed mercury from the quicksilver mines at New Almaden… Sun-worshipers and amusement-seekers bound for the beaches of Santa Cruz… Commerce rolled and profits flowed all along the South Pacific Coast Railroad, and all of it passed through Wright's. The town had reached its zenith.

But prosperity is a fleeting thing... as impossible to contain as time itself. It can be maintained for a certain period of time… perhaps even steered in one general direction or another. But eventually… in fact, inevitably… it will fade and move on. Decline is an unavoidable fact of life; as relentless and ever-present as the tides, and in due time, the residents of Wright's too would learn this lesson.

Did anyone realize that the bloom was off the rose? It seems likely that the moment of the community's greatest glory came and went without any real notice being taken. People went to bed on that anonymous evening not knowing that when the sun rose the next morning, it would do so without the promise of the new day being better than the last.

And so the long process of decline came as a thief in the night, striking its first blow with the opening of the Southern Pacific Railroad's Coast Route on New Year's Eve of 1900. Although traffic volumes would remain high throughout World War One and well into the "Roaring Twenties," the competition posed by a straighter, faster track just a scant few miles to the east would cut deeply into the flow of through freight.

And from that point on, the misfortunes would only compound.

Damage wrought by the Great Quake of 1906 would close the line for three years, driving even more traffic into the clutches of the Coast Route. Then, with the onset of the Great Depression in 1929, the economic reality shifted from merely bad to downright dismal. Businesses were shuttered and families abandoned their homes; some of which had been occupied by said families for generations.

And finally, on the eve of war, a devastating double-whammy: Winter storms in 1940 brought massive landslides thundering down the mountains and across the tracks in the canyon of Zayante Creek, while at the same time, construction crews to the west were putting the finishing touches on the newly built State Route 17. Flanked by competition on both sides and beset by an economic climate gone mad, the railroad finally called it quits. Official "notice of abandonment" papers were filed on March 25th of 1940, and by September the rails were gone.

And then, in a turn of events so symbolic of the town's demise that it almost seemed pre-ordained, the historic Arbor Villa Hotel… the very establishment that had given birth to the town 70 years before… the structure that was still owned and occupied by decedents of James Wright himself… burned to the ground amidst the bluish-gray haze of a cool autumn evening, never to be rebuilt.

For the colorful town of Wright's, it was the last straw. Forsaken by the railroad that had built it and bypassed by the highway that had ignored it, the town was reduced to an isolated backwater, hidden from view amongst the timeless redwoods and offering little to nothing in terms of economic opportunity or advancement. With heavy hearts, the few remaining residents packed their worldly possessions, took one final look at their homes, and departed, leaving little more than a few dilapidated buildings and a trunk full of memories in their wake. It was the end of the line.

Today, the crumbling foundations of the general store and a half-buried swimming pool from one of the hotels are the only physical traces left from the town of Wright's. Meanwhile, further away at the base of the hill, along the banks of tranquil Los Gatos Creek, two concrete piers rise like ancient obelisks from the muddy banks. Reaching skyward to mingle with the treetops, they once carried the tracks of the South Pacific Coast across the lazy current, but now appear more like forgotten monuments to the railroad's passing. At its base, one pier still bears faded stenciling, warning passers-by to beware of loose rocks falling from the trains above.

And in the opposite direction, at the top of the dead-end canyon that Wright's was once so snugly tucked into, the ruins of the massive Summit Tunnel lay hidden amongst the trees. No longer used by anything more than the occasional hiker seeking shelter and salamanders seeking a damp place to nest, this once vital link in the region's transportation infrastructure now lies neglected and forgotten, slowly being torn apart by tree roots, flowing water and the occasional seismic jolt: A ghostly echo of an economic boom gone bust, and of a golden age too wonderful to last.

_Getting There is Half the Fun:_ Visiting Wright's today is something of a chore. Being the virtual definition of "off the beaten path," it's not the sort of place that one would simply stumble across on their way to someplace else, and very few contemporary maps bother to mark its location. You just need to sort of know where it is… and you have to go out specifically looking to find it.

Perhaps the easiest way to find Wright's is to take the exact same approach chosen by our heroes. Driving north from the city of Santa Cruz, take California State Route 17 into the Santa Cruz Mountains, passing through the town of Scott's Valley along the way. Stay on CA-17 until you see the signs for Summit Road, at which point you should exit the freeway and head east, running along the spine of the Coast Range.

After about ten minutes of driving, hang a left turn onto Morrel Road, followed by another left onto Wright's Station Road. Use caution from this point on, as the road becomes steep, sharp and narrow. (Calling it "one-and-a-half lanes" would be overly generous.)

After several minutes of steep descent you'll reach the bottom of the canyon. At this point the road makes a sweeping right-hand curve past a wide gravel turnout and crosses Los Gatos Creek on the ornate bridge mentioned previously. Pull over and park along the gravel, making sure to be well off the road. Welcome to Wright's!

And if you're still curious after everything I've mentioned here… Well, you're obviously a bigger history buff than me… But you can also learn more by going to Wikipedia and typing "Wright's California" into the search window. There's a well-written article with photos and a lot of good historical detail. Or if you're on "Facebook," run a search for "Steven Cope," (that's me), and then look for a photo album called "The Tunnel Rats of Santa Cruz." There's several dozen pics in there, both old and new, documenting some of the hidden historic treasures that these mountains still conceal.

Oh, and before I forget entirely, the song _"Under the Boardwalk"_ was written by Kenny Young and Arthur Resnick, and famously rendered by the group _"The Drifters"_ in June of 1964: Yet another in a laundry list of hits to be produced under the Atlantic Records label. Although the lyrics were technically written in deference to the famous boardwalk amusement park at Coney Island, New York, generations of music fans since have come to associate the song with Santa Cruz as well.

And so, having left you all sufficiently bored for one day, I will bid you adieu. Stay tuned for Chapter Two, which should be hitting the shelves in very short order.

Take care, one and all!

_Nutzkie…_


	2. Enter Darkness, Enter Light

**~ Chapter Two ~**

The beams of their flashlights were barely enough to cut the darkness as Team Possible pushed ahead into the unknown. To call the corridor they were now exploring "claustrophobic" would be putting it mildly, as the concrete walls were barely wide enough for a person of slight build to squeeze through with shoulders across. For the likes of Drakken or Shego it would be little trouble, but Kim silently wondered how some of the huskier henchmen could ever manage such a feat.

It wasn't long before the accommodations became much more spacious however, as the narrow passage soon rejoined the bore of the original tunnel on the far side of the blocked section. A ramshackle assemblage of wires and lights hung haphazardly from the ceiling, providing enough light to navigate by, but little else.

Shining her light across the walls and ceiling, Kim noted that the concrete ramparts they had seen previously had now given way to walls of brick and mortar. Meanwhile, the muddy dirt floor below was littered with dozens of such bricks, which over time had lost their tenuous grip and given up their ghosts to gravity's relentless pull.

"Well this is just unsettling." Ron remarked, jerking his light around as the tell tale crackle of shifting masonry reverberated through a distant corner of the bore.

"Wade? Are you sure that this place is safe?" Kim whispered into her wrist. "'Cause I'm not really feeling the confidence right now."

"It's as safe as it can be." Wade replied in a less than reassuring fashion. "But you've gotta remember that the geology of the Pacific Coast is notoriously unstable. Plus, you have to factor in the seismic activity."

"Great." Kim moaned. "And just to make sure we're all sufficiently freaked out, exactly how 'active' are we talking here?"

"Let me put it this way." Wade explained, somewhat nervously. "You've heard of the San Andreas Fault, haven't you?"

Kim abruptly halted her advance, causing a nervous Ron to nearly plow into the back of her.

"Yeeeeeah." She cautiously admitted.

"Well… If my GPS readings are correct… It's exactly four feet in front of you."

"Well this was a fun trip!" Ron sang, turning and marching back the way they had come, his eyes as wide as the dinner plates at an all-you-can-eat buffet. "Be sure to let me know how it turns out!"

He abruptly found himself on his backside in the mud however, thanks to Kim's firm grip on the collar of his shirt.

"Oh no." she scolded. "We're _so _not backing out now."

"Oh really? How about in another five seconds when I start screaming hysterically?"

"Look! Would you just calm down and get a hold of yourself?"

"The only thing I want to be holding right now is solid ground with no heavy objects above me!"

"Look," Kim sighed, "this tunnel has been here for… for… uh.. Hey Wade… When was this thing built?"

"Eighteen-eighty."

"…For well over a century." She continued. "It hasn't collapsed in all of that time, so I think it's safe to say that it's… well… um… _safe."_ She winced slightly at the highly awkward turn of phrase.

Reluctantly, Ron took the hand that Kim offered and struggled to his feet, slipping and nearly falling again in the damp earth. Soon they were on the move again, with Ron doing an awkward little hop across the spot that Wade had identified as essentially being a very large defect in the surface of the earth.

"Worried about your mom's back, are we?" Kim knowingly smirked.

"Hey, have you _seen_ what her chiropractor charges?" Ron responded defensively. "And let's face it: That's one _really_ big crack back there. I ain't takin' any chances!"

"You _do_ realize that's just an old superstition, right?"

"Oh, and I suppose next you're going to try telling me that four-leaf clovers aren't really lucky?"

"Actually, they're not."

"Awwwww, so I've been putting up with grass stains all these years for nothing?"

"And you wonder why your mom taught you to do your own laundry at the age of eight."

"Hey now! Don't be knockin' the Ron-man's mad washday skills. There's a reason I'm always stylin' wrinkle-free and springtime fresh."

"And color-coordinated Diablo Sauce stains." Kim murmured under her breath, resuming her advance into the shadows. There were several more seconds of silence before Ron spoke again.

"You know," he giggled, "I just thought of something."

"And what's that?"

"That this is the first time I can remember being on a mission and honestly being able to say this."

"Say what?"

"That it's not my _fault."_

All of Kim's efforts to remain stealthy were for naught as she burst out in a belly laugh. Like so many of Ron's observations, the remark was corny, ridiculous, out of left field, and exactly what was needed to break the tension of the moment. It was the perfect reminder of why she had first started taking him with her on missions so many years ago.

"How much… (cough)… how much farther, Wade?" Kim managed to ask as her giggles finally subsided.

"Well the entire tunnel is listed as being over sixty-two hundred feet, but I'm picking up a magnetic anomaly about fifty yards ahead of you. It looks like there's a large, tubular steel structure built directly into the mountain."

"Probably reinforcement to prevent cave-ins." Kim theorized. "Okay, if we're that close, then we're going to 'silent running' mode. Stay off the com link for now, but leave an open channel in case there's an emergency."

"Gotcha." Wade agreed. "I'll monitor your progress from here and if any thing serious pops up, I'll text."

"Understood. We'll be in touch."

"Good luck, guys."

"Thanks. You too."

Exactly 150 feet later, the duo was standing before a heavy door, set into a wall of shimmering stainless steel.

"Clinical, yet foreboding." Kim dryly observed. "I see Drakken hasn't lost his sense of style."

"Yeah, but the welcome mat and the 'no soliciting' sign sure take something away." Ron added. "Which brings up the question of which one we follow."

"Well we're not selling anything," Kim observed, "so I'd say the welcome sign is the applicable one."

"And if the good doc is nice enough to invite us in, then it would seem rude not to accept." Ron concurred.

"The 'rents always _did_ teach me to be neighborly." Kim grinned, reaching up and trying the doorknob. There was an audible click, followed by a faint hiss of air as pressure equalized and the door swung open.

"Darn! And I forgot to bring a housewarming gift." Ron lamented as he followed stealthily behind.

Once inside the hatch, the surroundings became much more familiar. As with nearly all lairs, the lighting was ample but ominous, casting dramatic shadows into just the right places, creating a sense of impending doom without interfering with ones ability to see what they were doing. The working spaces of the lair seemed to be further along the corridor's length while stacks of unopened packing crates sat closer to the entrance: Evidence that the mountain's newest resident had yet to finish the process of settling in.

Using the crates as cover, the intrepid members of Team Possible advanced stealthily through the shadows. Darting here and there, hugging the outer walls and carefully peeking around each corner before advancing again, they made their way toward the activity that seemed to be centered in an area just ahead of them. It wasn't long before familiar voices became distinct and they paused to listen in.

"Johnson! Andrews! Put the electro-magnetic repulsor ray over there against the far wall! Smithers! The neural incompacitor goes over there by the particle accelerator!"

"Hey Boss! Where do you want the espresso machine?"

"Over there in the corner by the short-wave communications jammer and the pool table."

"Blue boy's got _pool table?"_ Ron remarked. "Sweet!"

"Shhhhh!" Kim quietly scolded.

A resounding crash suddenly came from an unknown portion of the lair, drawing the attention of everyone present.

"Would you nincompoops be more careful?" Drakken shouted. "And I might also add that that's coming out of your check!"

"Moving day blues, huh Doc?" Shego asked, emerging from the shadows to stand beside her employer slash significant other.

"I realize that good help is hard to find Shego, but I didn't think it was _impossible_." the mad scientist growled in frustration. "For Pete's sake, I used to find all the men and materials I needed just by opening the phone book."

"No you didn't."

"Well I always meant to."

"Uh-huhhhhh..." the green villianess drolled with a hooded glance, looking about as she made a cursory inspection of the room.

"So this time around you decided to go with an 'underground railroad' theme, huh?" she finally spoke, passing her own judgment upon Drakken's latest taste in lairs. "Any particular reason for this departure from your normal M.O.?"

"Well since you asked," Drakken proudly stated, counting items off on his outstretched fingers, "in no particular order, the costs were minimal, there's no drawn-out period of construction, permitting is easy-peazy in this county… there are no pesky neighbors to be snooping around in our business..."

"Called it!"

_"Shhhhhhhh!"_

"...and most importantly, its in close proximity to the primary component of my latest fool-proof plan."

"Yeah, unless the fool happens to be you." Shego snarked under her breath.

"What was that?"

"Oh, nothing Doctor D... Nothing at all. You were saying something about the plan?"

"Ah! Right! My plan!" Drakken enthused, turning almost giddy with excitement. "You see, my good Shego, no power on earth will be able to stop my latest plan. And do you know why?"

"Ugh. I just know I'm gonna regret this, but I'll bite anyway." the villainous vixen groaned. "Why is that, Doc?"

"Because the power behind my latest plan _is_ the earth!"

"Yeah, you just lost me."

"Nnnnngh! Okay, it's like this." Drakken began to explain. "Do you know what the most destructive force in California is?"

"Wildfires?" One of the henchmen spoke up.

"No." Drakken moaned.

"Mudslides?" another offered.

"No!"

"Thunderstorms?"

"Nope!"

"Lakers fans?"

"Not even close!"

"Charlie Sheen behind the wheel?"

"Earthquakes! It's _earthquakes,_ alright! Sheesh!" Drakken fumed. "Long story short, this lair is sitting just a few yards from the largest fault line in the state and with my new Tectonic Harmonic Equalizer I can control its movements."

"Well _that_ just rolls right off the tongue." Shego observed, raising an eyebrow suspiciously.

"Tectonic Harmonic Equalizer?" Kim whispered to her partner slash fiancé. "The T.H.E.?"

"Sounds like someone stuttering." Ron observed dryly.

"Maybe he's just nervous."

"Or he's developed a verbal tick."

"It's the perfect plan!" Drakken continued to rave. "Simple and direct! I'll destroy the entire state, little by little, until they agree to put me in charge of everything!"

"Wait! You want to be _governor?"_ Shego suddenly broke in. "Are you freakin' _kidding_ me?"

"Seriously Shego. It's not like I could do any worse than that mush-mouthed musclehead that's running things now."

Shego started to make a smart remark when she pulled up short, realizing with no small amount of surprise that the self-proclaimed genius actually had a point.

"Okay, point made... but what happens if they _don't_ meet your demands?"

"Then Los Angeles and San Francisco wind up as suburbs." Drakken grinned malevolently.

"Hollywood and the tree-huggers living side-by-side, huh?" Shego pondered. "You know, this could actually turn out to be entertaining."

"Not to mention that the Dodgers and Giants will be cross-town rivals again!" Drakken giggled, prancing about giddily. "Heck! It might just be enough to get me watching _Sport Center_ again! You know, things there just haven't been the same since that Olbermann fellow left."

'Okay, okay… So it sounds solid on the surface." Shego finally admitted. "But aren't you forgetting something?"

"Oh jeez! Is my fly open again?"

"No, and thanks for the visual on that count." Shego groaned. "I'm talking about our last foray into the world ground-shifting events."

"Beg pardon?"

"Don't you even remember? The whole 'back to school' debacle with that stupid fake university of yours?"

"First of all, my idea for starting a university was not _stupid!"_

"Debatable."

"Nnnnngh! And _second,_ yes I _do_ remember the experience, thank you very much, and I've now taken the necessary precautions. This high-strength steel cylinder we're standing in is more than sturdy enough to survive even the strongest quake. As long as we stay inside, we're as snug as a bug in a rug."

"You willing to put a guarantee on that?"

"If I wasn't then I wouldn't have passed on the manufacturer's extended warranty when I bought this place."

"Okay, fine. Whatever then." Shego finally relented. "So are we gonna do this thing or not?"

"Patience, my dear Shego." Drakken sagely instructed, raising a hand in a gesture of placation. "Once my men have all of the machines connected we'll be able to commence 'Operation Shake-Up.'" He grinned malevolently as he spoke. "In just a few short moments, the golden state will be shaken _and_ stirred."

"Which is our cue to get _him_ 'all shook up.'" Kim remarked, withdrawing a few feet further back into the shadows. "We're gonna need a…"

"Distraction? I'm on it." Ron spoke, completing his fiancé's thought. Pulling back behind another stack of crates, he chanced a quick glance about before striding confidently across the room and right up to a red-clad henchman who appeared to be in the final stages of installing an electrical junction box.

"Excuse me buddy," he said, tapping the burly man on the shoulder, "but could you point a guy to the men's room?"

"Down that-a-way, third door on the right." The man grunted and nodded, barely looking up from his task.

"Ah! Thanks dude." Ron jovially said before turning and walking away, leaving the hired henchman to continue his work.

…Work that continued for all of five seconds.

"Huh? _Heeeeeeeeey…_ Wait a sec!" he exclaimed, his face shooting up from the box as realization struck him like a dropped anvil. "Hey you! Hold it right there!"

And with a quick glance over his shoulder to make sure he had drawn the attention of everyone in the room, Ron was off like a shot. Zipping past a stunned Drakken and Shego and disappearing into the shadows beyond, he left a cloud of dust and stunned silence in his wake.

"Uh, wasn't that…" Drakken stammered.

"Pumpkin's dopey sidekick." Shego correctly observed. "Looks like we've got company, Doctor D. After him fellas!"

A dozen henchmen and one blue megalomaniac simply stood and stared at her.

"Oh, do you mean _us?"_ one of the henchmen finally asked after several seconds of silence.

"No, I mean the freakin' Bobsey Twins, you moron!" Shego growled impatiently. _"Yes, you!"_

Virtually every henchman in sight dropped whatever was in his hands and sprinted away into the depths of the lair, hotly pursuing their blond-haired quarry and leaving the villainous duo alone with their machines.

"Well _that_ was unexpected." Drakken observed, staring off into the darkness. "How the heck do you suppose the buffoon got in here anyway?"

"Don't know and don't care right now." Shego shot back, suspiciously scanning the room. "My main concern is the other half of the team. 'Cause wherever Tweedle Dumber back there goes, Princess is sure to follow."

"Ho-ho, you know me all too well, Shego."

In a flash, the mint-skinned villainess had ignited her hands and turned to face her teen-aged nemesis.

"So Kimmie. Still dragging around that big-eared boy toy of yours, I see." She taunted.

"He's been good enough to kick your sorry butts on multiple occasions." A non-repulsed Kim shot back. "And for the record, he's not just my boy toy."

"What? Did you finally wise up and demote him to 'doorstop' duty?"

"Not exactly." Kim smirked, ripping at the Velcro strap on her left wrist and removing her glove. Even in the relatively dim light of the lair, the glint of the tiny princess-cut diamond was unmistakable.

"Oh puh-leez. You're kidding me, right?" Shego stammered, recoiling back in shock. "The idiot actually popped the question?"

"Well I didn't find this in a box of cereal, if that's what you mean." The red headed heroine grinned as she replaced her glove. "But to answer you directly, he proposed right after our last mission, and… well let's just say I found it a real no-brainer."

"Really?" Shego asked, seeming genuinely surprised by Kim's account. "So the sidekick finally managed to grow a pair and take the direct approach, huh? Unlike _some_ people I know." She cast a sideways scowl at her employer, who suddenly seemed fascinated with a particular line of rivets in the ceiling.

Kim only coughed nervously and tried to think of something… _anything… _other than what Shego was implying.

"Maybe he's not eating the right brand of cereal." Kim quipped, nodding subtly in the mad scientist's direction. "And not that your own personal issues aren't fascinating, or anything even _close_ to that actually, but can we get on with business? I had to bump back a 3:30 appointment with the perfect tan for this and I just hate to keep my friends waiting."

"Oh, why Kimmie." Shego predatorily grinned, increasing the strength of her plasma, "Looking for a good _bake,_ are we? Please, allow me to lend an _assist!"_

And with that the green villainess charged, launching a volley of plasma and following it up with a vicious swipe that Kim expertly sidestepped. Shego was quick to redirect her attack however, following up with a backhand judo chop that Kim ducked beneath before retaliating with a right jab that she just missed landing.

Backing away from each other following the brief but frantic exchange, the pair began to circle each other like a pair of amped-up alley cats, each one poised and ready to strike at the slightest hint of an opening.

"I gotta tell you, Pumpkin. I'm really going to miss these little dust-ups of ours." Shego taunted as the pair orbited.

"Why? You finally get tired of having your head handed to you?" Kim shot right back, picking up on the ebb and flow of banter as if it were second nature.

"Oh don't flatter yourself, Kimmie." Shego smirked. "I'm just figuring that once you set up housekeeping with nacho-boy, you probably won't have much time for practice. Too bad. It's always sad to see when such a wild and ferocious beast gets domesticated."

"Oh don't you worry yourself, Shego." Kim responded in kind. "Rest assured that Ron and I will _both_ be kicking your biscuit well into our late thirties!"

"I wouldn't bet on that, Princess!"

"Really? And here I thought easy money was your thing."

Again the combatants clashed, rapidly closing the distance between them to trade a vicious series of rapid-fire punches and jabs. Shego had just missed with a haymaker and Kim was preparing to reply with a roundhouse kick when an effeminate scream echoed throughout the lair.

Emerging from the shadows, Ron came tearing through central portion of the lair once more, closely pursued by a gaggle of henchmen that seemed substantially fewer in number than the group that had initiated the pursuit. Drakken, Shego and Kim all jumped aside as the disorganized mob zipped past before quickly disappearing into the shadows once more. In their wake, a handful of wheezing stragglers stumbled into view and collapsed, their exhausted forms unmoving upon the cold, tile floor.

"That does it!" Drakken shouted, angrily slamming his fist down on a nearby table. "Starting next week, everyone is going on a strict cardio regimen! No exceptions!"

"_Mad running away skills."_ Kim inwardly grinned as she shook her head. Sometimes Ron could find the most innovative uses for his talents.

Shego could only groan dejectedly as she massaged the bridge of her nose. Somehow, when she started her career in villainy, working with associates of such lackluster quality was _not_ something she had envisioned.

"Imagining a more competent set of co-workers?" Kim asked tauntingly.

"No, I'm imagining _you_ in a full body cast!" Shego angrily snapped, lowering her head and charging like an enraged bull.

Kim held her ground against the assault, waiting until just the right moment to side step and grab her opponent's shoulder. From there it was a simple matter of redirecting her attacker's momentum, and with a casual flip the villainous vixen was sent sprawling across the floor.

Flip-kicking back to her feet, she charged again, this time coming at Kim with a straight overhand chop. Kim took a step back and braced for impact, bringing both arms up across herself in an expert block. But the force of the blow was stronger than she anticipated, and she quickly found herself driven back against a nearby crate. Shego pressed the attack, bringing her plasma-engulfed hand within mere inches of Kim's face.

"Word of advice for working underground, Princess." Shego growled, leaning in to stare Kim directly in the eyes. "When you're in a hole, _stop digging!"_

"Dig _this!"_ Kim snapped back, bringing one foot up to the center of Shego's chest and shoving hard. The green-themed villainess stumbled backward and slid to a stop, shoulders heaving and teeth clenched in barely controlled rage. Kim's face set as she took up a defensive stance. Clearly, Shego was not going to let this one go easily.

She was about to launch yet another assault when the sound of hurried footsteps and heavy breathing filled the air once more. Her shoulders slumped as everyone's attention was drawn toward the shadows. _"This is just getting to be tedious."_ The mint-skinned ne'er-do-well silently thought.

Materializing from the shadows yet again, Ron approached the group at a steady trot rather than the frenzied sprint he had shown previously. Jogging into the center of the group, he casually turned around and watched in amusement as one lone henchman, haggard and gasping for breath, stumbled forth from the darkness, gripping his side and barely aware of his surroundings. With raspy, heaving breaths he staggered forward to stand in front of the tow-headed blonde, his wrap-around sunglasses doing little to disguise the utter exhaustion that was now afflicting him. He lifted his gaze to stare into the smiling brown eyes of his fleet-footed quarry, prompting Ron's grin to only increase in magnitude.

Then, with a gleam in his eye, Ron placed a single index finger in the center of the man's forehead and gave a gentle shove. The exhausted man teetered unstably for the briefest of moments, and then like a giant tree falling to the woodsman's axe, toppled to the floor in an unresponsive heap.

"Game, set and match." Ron grinned, exchanging a high-five with Rufus who had just emerged from his owner's pocket. "The Ron-dog is a-feelin' the need for the mad speed!"

"LOOK OUT, RON-DOG!" Kim suddenly shouted, giving him just enough warning to duck as Drakken took a swing from behind him with a hastily acquired length of steel pipe. He stumbled and retreated as he dodged two more blows, looking for some sort of advantage. He looked to Kim for help, but found none as Shego had renewed her own attack. He would have to deal with the blue megalomaniac on his own.

Using "duck-and-dodge" techniques honed over many months on the gridiron, he continued to retreat, keeping himself just out of the mad scientist's reach. He backed up steadily, shifting left and right to avoid each blow, slowly working his way in amongst several large pieces of advanced-looking machinery. The close confines soon restricted Drakken's swing, providing some measure of breathing room, and he seized upon the opportunity to even the odds.

Looking to his left, he noticed a section of steel pipe similar to the one Drakken now wielded. Although stout and solid, it appeared flimsily installed, with one end being loosely attached to an older and well-corroded copper pipe that protruded directly from the wall.

Reaching up with both hands he took a solid grip and pulled down with all of his weight. The steel creaked and groaned, shuddered momentarily, then finally gave way, falling cleanly into his large hands.

"So you wanna play things _that_ way, do ya blue-boy?" he heckled as he twirled the pipe back and forth in front of him like a martial arts weapon. "Well then prepare for all your _pipe dreams_ to come true!" His gleaming grin suddenly faded however, and he cast a sullen expression at the mole rat on his shoulder.

"That sounded a lot better when it was still in my head, didn't it?"

"_Hurk… Ho yeah."_

"EGAD, YOU FOOL! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?" Drakken suddenly shrieked, causing everyone in the room, including several of the henchmen who were only now getting the starch backing their knees, to stop and take notice.

"Uh, you mean _besides_ an admittedly poor attempt at witty banter?" Ron asked perplexedly. "Nothing. Why? Did I miss something?"

"SHEGO! PUT OUT THAT LIGHT!" Drakken screamed again.

"Huh? What on earth are you talking about?" His erstwhile sidekick stammered in confusion.

"YOUR HANDS! PUT THEM OUT!"

Stunned by the sudden rebuke, Shego quickly complied and the green fire that engulfed her hands sputtered out.

"THE POWER! SHUT OFF THE MAIN POWER!" Drakken continued in near hysterics, leaping across the room to a nearby electrical panel and pulling violently downward on a large, red breaker. Instantly, the entire lair was plunged into darkness, only to be quickly re-illuminated in a far dimmer fashion by banks of battery-powered emergency lights that clicked on automatically as the loss of primary power was registered.

As nearly a dozen people blinked blindly amidst the inky blackness waiting impatiently for their eyes to adjust, an anonymous voice called out from the dark giving form to the question that all were thinking at that moment.

"Uh, boss?" one of the henchmen warily inquired. "What's going on?"

"That pipe that the buffoon just wrecked is the feeder line to the primary fuel cells!" Drakken hissed in a tone that was half anger and half sheer panic. "I tapped a natural gas deposit to power this facility and without that pipe the gas floods directly into the room! It doesn't take but a few moments to reach explosive levels! Right now, any spark would be enough to set this whole place off!"

"_Sniff-sniff… Phee-eewww!"_ Rufus noted, fanning a paw in front of his nose.

"Oh, _that's_ what that smell is!" Ron observed, staring at Drakken and wrinkling his own nose in disgust. "Man, I thought you just cut one loose."

"So this whole room is now a bomb waiting to go off?" Shego clarified in a way that was perhaps more statement than question. "Can't you just shut off the main valve and ventilate the place or something?"

"It's a naturally-occurring deposit! _There is no valve!"_ Drakken bellowed.

"Well _that_ was just a stroke of genius, now wasn't it?"

"Hey! Don't blame me! When Mother Nature creates these things she doesn't exactly supply pre-installed plumbing!"

"Fine! Whatever! So _now_ what do we do, oh fearless leader?" Shego asked mockingly.

"You mean before or after I change my shorts?" Ron timidly whimpered from the shadows.

"Eeeewww." Kim winced.

"First of all," Drakken whispered, as if he feared that loud noises could set the impending conflagration off, "we scour the room and eliminate all potential sources of ignition. That means _all_ electrical equipment: Generators, lighting, kitchen appliances…"

_Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!_

"Telephones…" he whimpered dejectedly.

"Telemarketers: They always call at the worst time." Ron dryly observed.

_Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!_

"I don't know about you guys," Shego said, abandoning her fighting stance and slowly backing away from the group, "but I ain't waiting around to see what they're selling! GAIN WAY!"

She quickly turned and bolted for the door, the remainder of the lair's occupants following closely on her heels.

Spilling out through the steel door of the lair's inner sanctum, a dozen frantic individuals scrambled for cover. Tripping over one another like actors reprising a scene from a "Keystone Cops" short, they pressed themselves up against the crumbling brick walls, the last one out having the presence of mind to slam the door closed behind him.

Seconds later, the entire mountain shook with a resounding "boom" as the heavy armored door was torn from its hinges and pitched out of sight into the darkness beyond. Several bricks fell to join their brethren on the muddy floor amidst a shower of dust that cascaded down from above, and the entire tunnel seemed to groan like a great wounded animal beneath the stress, unsure as to it's ability to withstand this latest assault.

No one dared breathe as they awaited the tunnel's verdict. Would the century-old structure hold? Or would this dank and moldy chamber now become their collective tomb? For several seconds they listened as the surrounding earth emitted a series of unsettling sounds, but when the dust finally settled and the sounds subsided, they were all still there, safe and relatively unharmed.

"Well… _(cough)…_ that was a… _(cough)…_ a _blast."_ Ron choked through the remaining dust. "Let's agree to… _(cough)…_ never do that again, shall we?"

"Yeah. _(cough)_ Agreed." Kim hacked in return.

"My… my lair." Drakken whined from the dark corner where he had taken refuge. "My machines… My plans… My troll doll collection…"

"Uh, maybe this would be a good time to go?" Ron offered, leaning over to whisper quietly in his fiancé's ear.

"Good call. Let's split." She quickly agreed.

"Oh cruel hand of fate! Why have you cursed me so?" Drakken continued to bawl. "What further misfortune could you possibly choose to inflict upon me?"

"Hey boss. Check this out." One of the henchmen said, handing Drakken what appeared to be a battered and partially melted telephone answering machine. "It must've been thrown out by the explosion. I think it still works."

Taking the offered device, Drakken eyed it suspiciously for several seconds before summoning his courage and pressing the "play" button.

"_BEEEEEEEP! Hi Drewbie. It's mommy."_ The machine squawked. _"I just wanted to let you know that this week's canasta tournament was canceled, so I got to thinking how absolutely wonderful it would be to come and visit my little boy for the week. I'll be there on Tuesday. Then we can start on fixing up that social life of yours. Lovey-lou! BEEEEEEEP!"_

_"!"

* * *

_

The mad scientist's agonized wail was still ringing in their ears when Team Possible finally made their way back to the Sloth. Tossing their gear unceremoniously into the trunk, they both climbed into the front seats and buckled up for the drive back to the beach.

"Well _that_ was certainly an eventful afternoon." Ron offered as Kim guided the Sloth back onto the road and began the arduous ascent out of the canyon. "Fighting, explosions, cave-ins… I'd say we hit the complete trifecta with this one."

"A lot more exciting than laying on a beach." Kim agreed. "Which brings up another issue."

"Really? What's that?"

"That we still have two days of vacation to burn." She pointed out. "So what should we do? Pick up where we left off?"

"Meh, I don't think sun-worshiping is really in the cards for today." Ron observed, noting the angle of the sun in the western sky. "Maybe we could try that little seafood place we found yesterday out on the pier?"

"Always thinking about food, huh?"

"Hey, I can't help it! Whenever I let my mind wander it just naturally goes in that direction." Ron said defensively. "It's like the swallows returning to Capistrano or something."

"Well your sense of direction is something that we can work on later," Kim warmly smiled from across the car, "but for right now, an early dinner sounds nice."

"Yeah, I thought so too." Ron agreed. "And then afterward, maybe a sunset walk on the beach?"

"Sounds even better." Kim purred as she smoothly guided the pink coupe around one of the many hairpin turns along the road, allowing her mind to drift a bit, smiling as she anticipated the sensation of warm sand between her toes and Ron's hand in hers.

"So it's a date, then." Ron agreed, stretching himself out in the passenger seat and clasping his hands behind his head. "Now let's see how quick we can get back. 'Cause you know how seafood tastes best when it's fresh."

And with that the brightly colored vehicle accelerated through the redwoods, perhaps a little faster than it should.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

And thus we conclude out latest experiment in literary settings. Hope I didn't blow up the lab, professor. (No pun intended.)

As was previously stated, this story represents an attempt on my part to push the boundaries of setting fictional tales in real-world settings… To effectively see how "real" fiction can be. Did it succeed? Or did it fall flat on its face? I'll let you, the reader, be the judge of that.

Oh, and for those of you who were wondering about a time line, this story takes place directly following the events of "Rise of Rhodighan." Those of you who were wondering how to keep all of this organized... Now you know.

_Passing Gas:_ The gas pocket beneath the summit ridge near Wright's Station is very real. Discovered during excavation of the summit tunnel in the late 1870s, construction foremen would routinely enter the tunnel and perform a process known as "flashing," lighting an oil-soaked rag at the end of a long pole to burn off excess gas before explosive levels of saturation could be reached. This approach left something to be desired however, as Foreman M. C. Hyland and a crew of 31 Chinese laborers tragically discovered on the evening of February 12th, 1878.

Walking into the tunnel at the start of the night shift, Hyland reached into his coat and pulled out a match to light the flashing rag as his crew lingered a few yards behind. The instant that the match was struck however, the very air around them ignited and a great column of flame roared down the tunnel bore, bursting through the portal with a mighty report that was heard for miles in all directions. Fifty feet from the tunnel's mouth a ten-ton air compressor was flipped onto its side like a child's toy, and at a range of 200 feet, the Wright's blacksmith shop was leveled by the shockwave. Further away, railroad flatcars were tossed into Los Gatos Creek like a giant game of pick-up sticks. Amidst the smoldering, stinking aftermath, a few survivors including Hyland himself staggered forward, each of them burned almost beyond recognition. Although some would linger for a few days, all would ultimately succumb to their wounds.

Work would progress and the tunnel would ultimately be completed in 1880, but operating trains through the mountain was acknowledged as risky until 1893 when installation of a brick lining walled off the source.

And even then, the legacy of the blast would still be felt. In order to dissipate the reduced flow of gas that even still continued to seep into the tunnel, a copper pipe was driven into the brick wall near the tunnel's peak, tapping the deposit beyond. An open flame was then applied to the end of the pipe, burning off the seeping gas as it emerged from the mountain and bathing the darkened interior with a ghostly glow. It would become known within local legend as the "Eternal Flame of the South Pacific Coast," both memorializing the lives that were lost on that tragic winter's evening, and marking for train crews the point at which the throttle would be cut and the brakes applied for the long, downhill glide to daylight.

Questions regarding interior conditions have lingered ever since the tunnel was sealed in 1941, leading to much speculation over potential hazards concealed within the mountain. In the late 1990s, a team of geologists and biochemists from nearby Stanford University drilled a small pilot hole through the earthen plug at Wright's and inserted a sampling probe, marking the first human inspection of the tunnel's interior in over half-a-century. Sure enough, large quantities of petroleum-based natural gas were present. However, the team concluded that there was no threat posed, as the anaerobic environment within the bore did not contain sufficient oxygen to allow for combustion. Still, for the few residents who continue to call these mountains home, the knowledge that they're living directly above what essentially amounts to the world's largest Molotov Cocktail is an unsettling proposition.

_South Pacific Coast Railroad:_ The story of the South Pacific Coast begins in the early 1870s, when the nation was still flush from the completion of the first Transcontinental Railroad, and the titans of Victorian-era business were still finding new and innovative ways to make untold fortunes from the entire affair. To the robber barons of the era it was a bonanza, but to the small-town farmers and businessmen of the San Francisco Bay Area, it was a period of economic enslavement. Caught within the vice-like grip of corporate monopoly, farmers and merchants were presented with a simple choice by the now mighty Central Pacific Railroad: Either pay the prices demanded, or be run out of business entirely.

Price gouging… Double billing… Land fraud… Strong-arm tactics… All were tools used by the C.P. to get their way, and with many company officers also holding elected positions within state government, the avenues of recourse available to a downtrodden citizenry were limited to non-existent. It was an economic stranglehold that author Frank Norris would later describe in detail with his best-selling docu-novel "The Octopus."

It was enough to inspire some area residents to action, and in 1874 a group of strawberry farmers from the community of San Jose took matters into their own hands. Banding together to form a company they called the Santa Clara Valley Railroad, they proposed to build their own track through the salt marshes of the south bay, connecting their fields to ferry landings along the tidal mud flats that dominated the shoreline there, effectively bypassing the C.P. and its oppressive practices.

It was an idea long on ambition, but sadly lacking in both technical knowledge and execution. Without the benefit of skilled civil engineers or professional contractors, construction of the S.C.V.R.R. was both haphazard and flawed. Large portions of rail bed were graded across the marshes without the benefit of adequate ditching or culverts. When the winter rains came, the glaring lack of drainage proved a fatal flaw, and much of the work wound up being washed into the bay. Bridge pilings failed to find adequate footing in the muddy sloughs that they crossed, and embankments sagged without proper tamping of the base layers beneath. All in all, it was an engineering flop so total in scope that from a distance it seemed almost comical.

And so, with a survey in tatters, one locomotive and exactly no track yet laid, the S.C.V.R.R. defaulted on its construction bonds and dissolved into a chaotic sea of lawsuits, disgruntled investors and disappointed residents who silently wondered if the chokehold of the Octopus could ever be broken.

And into this economic maelstrom stepped a Nevada silver baron by the name of James Graham Fair: An eccentric multi-millionaire with an out-sized ego… wealthy enough to pose a legitimate challenge to the mighty C.P… and crazy enough to actually try.

Starting with the purchase of what few assets the S.C.V.R.R. had left when the financial dust settled, Fair began the task of rebuilding the proto-road and extending it southward into the timber-rich mountains that separated the brackish backwaters of San Francisco Bay from the wind-swept coastal communities along Monterey Bay. From a new ferry terminal on Alameda Point the tracks ran south through the towns of Santa Clara, San Jose, Campbell and Los Gatos before entering the canyon of Los Gatos Creek. From this point, the rails rose on a one-and-a-half percent grade through the towns of Lexington and Alma, hop-scotching the creek six times to maintain a steady climb. At milepost 17, the tracks crossed the creek one final time on a sweeping right-hand curve and passed through Wright's before plunging into the darkened bowels of the Summit Tunnel.

Sixty-two hundred and eight feet later, the tracks emerged into daylight again, crossing Burns Creek and entering the town of Laurel where the massive saws of the Fred A. Hihn Lumber Company ran non-stop, day and night. The glimpse of daylight was fleeting, however: A scant quarter-mile after exiting the Summit Tunnel, passengers were once again plunged into darkness, traveling 5, 793 feet through the mountain to the resort community of Glenwood, where a series of so-called "magnetic springs" stood at the center of the era's latest hair-brained health craze.

Three miles down Bean Creek from Glenwood, the tracks reached the town of Clems and entered the Mount Charlie Tunnel. Nine hundred and seven feet later they emerged into Zayante Creek Canyon and turned left, following the creek to the lumber town of Felton before shadowing the San Lorenzo River all the way out of the mountains and onto the sunny beaches of Santa Cruz.

When the line finally opened in 1880 it caused a sensation, and the arrival of the first through train from Alameda was greeted with all the pomp and circumstance of a returning hometown hero. Soon, up to twenty trains a day were rolling through the rugged folds of the Coast Range, bringing prosperity and change to every community along the line. Commerce rolled and profits flowed all along the South Pacific Coast, making millionaires of its owners and believers of its customers.

However such success was not to go unnoticed, and safe within its Sacramento lair, the mighty Octopus stewed. The board of the Central Pacific had at first been reluctant to move against the South Pacific Coast, believing it to be an impossible dream and an engineering boondoggle destined for failure. But time had proven them wrong in this assumption, and by the time they realized the error of their thinking, it was too late. The S.P.C. was by then an established enterprise with influence and political connections of its own: The devil had been let in through the front door.

But that didn't mean there weren't _other_ ways of dealing with the problem…

For as the old adage goes; "if you can't beat them, then join them…" Or in the case of a company as big as the C.P., _"buy"_ them. Much like Marlon Brando would later do in _"The Godfather,"_ the transportation tycoons of Sacramento made Jim Fair an offer that he simply could not refuse.

In 1887, at a time when the sky seemed the limit for the South Pacific Coast, the unthinkable came to pass. James Fair… the man who had billed himself as a commercial messiah who would deliver economic salvation from the demons of the Central Pacific, sold his soul to those very same demons. The South Pacific Coast Railway was acquired by the Central Pacific through a lucrative lease agreement… The Octopus had won.

But rather than simply eradicate the railroad that had for so long been a thorn in its side, the C.P. took a much more pragmatic look at their newly acquired subsidiary. The revenues produced by the S.P.C. were substantial in their own way, and no businessperson worth his salt would ever turn his back on such easy profits. The S.P.C. had suddenly become a lot friendlier to the C.P. and the mountains soon resounded with the striking of hammers as a massive capital improvement project got underway.

Over a period of several years, the improvements came: Increased capacity, a widened gauge, reinforced bridges and stronger track. For nearly a decade the work continued. And when all was nearing completion, a special train was planned: First class accommodations were arranged… a guest list of dignitaries, business leaders and political movers-and-shakers was assembled… posh parlor and lounge cars were provisioned and staged at the Alameda Ferry Terminal. It was a coronation fit for a king, and it was all scheduled for what promised to be a picture-perfect spring day: 10:00 AM, April 18th, 1906.

Needless to say, that train never left the station…

When the Great Quake struck in the pre-dawn chill of that April morning, the damage it caused stretched across the entire length of the South Pacific Coast. Landslides and bridge collapses occurred in multiple locations. Several tunnels experienced cave-ins, and the 1.2-mile Summit Tunnel experienced five feet of offset where it actually transected the San Andreas Fault near Wright's. It was a calamity the likes of which few had ever seen, and it would be three full years before trains would once again run through these hills.

Then, when the Great Depression struck home in the fall of 1929, the blow was nothing short of devastating. Amidst all of the economic wreckage, quarries closed, mills fell silent, and personal travel constricted to a mere trickle of its former level. Long-time residents of the mountains left in droves, abandoning their homes in desperate flight from the economic calamity that was overtaking them. Overnight, once thriving communities became virtual ghost towns with business shuttered and houses left to rot into the ground from which they had sprung.

The final blow came late on the afternoon of February 20th, 1940. Battered by days of relentless storms, the mountains along Zayante Creek gave up their ghosts, plunging an angry wall of earth into the creek and effectively burying several hundred yards of railroad. Faced with a $50,000 repair bill, railroad executives looked to the north, only to find the bulldozers and scrapers of government construction crews as they put the finishing touches on a newly built State Route 17. For a struggling enterprise already long on hardship and high on debt, it was the last straw.

On March 25th of that year, the Southern Pacific Railroad filed Docket # 12815, Section 1 with the Interstate Commerce Commission, requesting permission to abandon what by then was known as the Los Altos-Santa Cruz Branch on the San Francisco Sub Division, Coast Division, Southern Pacific Transportation Company. On June fourth, permission was granted, and by the end of that summer the rails were gone, leaving only the empty tunnels and a series of struggling communities now deprived of their only real connection to the outside world.

Although proposals to re-open the line for regional transit purposes have been floated from time to time in the years since, no serious effort has yet been made to once again place an active rail line within the folds of these mountains. Ideas for light rail and limited freight service to relieve congestion on an overburdened Route 17 have largely fallen on unresponsive and apathetic ears, but some within the local community still hold out hope of one day resurrecting the South Pacific Coast. By in large, it has the outward appearance of a losing battle.

Today, the story of the South Pacific Coast Railway is but a forgotten footnote in the annals of California history. It's been seventy years now since the last train rolled through Los Gatos Creek Canyon and beneath the summit ridge at Wright's. The giant redwoods that once paid witness to the railroad's triumphal construction now stand guard over its decaying remains, silently mingling with the ghosts of a bygone era. But if one looks closely enough and opens his imagination, he can see them still: Echoes of a time when all seemed possible, and ordinary people dared to dream.

Remember the past… Embrace the future!

Peace out!

_Nutzkie…_


End file.
